I know we are all confused about the details of this policy, and I hope this doesn't add any more confusion...I'm cross-posting this from another thread because it MAY answer some of the questions that are circulating in this thread. I went to the Microsoft store today and pre-ordered. There was a Microsoft representative there, since it's in Bellevue, so I decided to talk to him about some of the concerns and hopefully clarify a few things. I summarized what he said, but it was about a 20 minute convo and I asked him a bunch of different scenarios to try to nail down some specifics. Here's the points that I posted in the Hype thread:

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I talked to the 'on-site' Microsoft representative there about some of the issues, here's a rundown of some of the interesting things he said:

1. In the family/friend circle, concurrent play is allowed on the same game. Say I get battlefield 4 and put it in my share. 1 person can play it with me, single player and/or multiplayer.

2. The other 9 people no longer have access to my shared library until that person is done playing.

3. Every person within the group can make their shared games available, so if 5 people in the group buy battlefield 4, the other 5 can play concurrently through other 'shared libraries' in the group. This way, everyone gets to play.

4. (this one tidbit was REALLY interesting) Let's say you have battlefield 4 in your family share circle, and you pick up halo 5 when it drops. no one in that circle is really interested at all in that game. you can have OTHER circles that you can share games with. You CANNOT have the same game in multiple circles, however. So if you put Halo 5 in one, it cannot be in another unless you remove it from that circle. No word on how many circles you can have, however.

5. The trade-off with this system, as I know a lot of people on GAF were saying there HAD to be one, is already known. It's the 24-hour check. In order to make sure that this system isn't exploitable, they needed a way to ensure that games weren't being passed around physically to be pirated/exploited. So that's the trade-off, to get this type of sharing system between friends/family and keep devs/pubs happy.

There were other things, but I got stuck in traffic and this is all that I one-noted. If I explained something in a way that you don't get, I'll try to rephrase it for you. I'm paraphrasing most of this because our conversation was probably 20 minutes and I had to go through MULTIPLE scenarios and analogies to get exact info from him.

I'm still looking forward to Major Nelson laying it out in plain english, but there were some good tidbits. This is what the Microsoft stores are being trained with from the reps, so take that as you will.

Devs just lost half their sales at least. Everybody who gets an Xbox One should get at least one person to split games with. Seeing as how you can play each other's games at the same time, that is the perfect scenario.

Xbox One games are now only $30. Find a partner and split the price. Huge win for Xbox One owners.

Give your family access to your entire games library anytime, anywhere: Xbox One will enable new forms of access for families. Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One. Just like today, a family member can play your copy of Forza Motorsport at a friendís house. Only now, they will see not just Forza, but all of your shared games. You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time.

Devs just lost half their sales at least. Everybody who gets an Xbox One should get at least one person to split games with. Seeing as how you can play each other's games at the same time, that is the perfect scenario.

Xbox One games are now only $30. Find a partner and split the price. Huge win for Xbox One owners.

u can already do something simular with any digital game/dlc on 360/ps3